Chapter 3:

Be My Forever

(Inspired by the Christina Perri/Ed Sheeren song)

August 1, 1998

"Harry James Potter," a feminine voice called from below, "get down here now or you won't be eating any breakfast before we have to go." Harry groaned, rolling over in his bed and throwing an arm over his face. He lay there, scouring his brain for a reason Hermione would be up before him, and where the heck they needed to be going. His last clear thought had been of the little kid barfing all over Peter at his parents' wedding. Harry had suddenly felt weird, and Hermione had practically had to drag him to the far side of an outbuilding to use the Time-Turner. He had a vague memory of kicking his clothes off, but that was it.

"Harry, get a move on."

"Delightful," he grumbled, "she's in one of THOSE moods this morning." Harry flung the sheet and blanket off him and then sort of tumbled out of his bed. He looked around his floor, hoping to find his trousers, but they weren't there. "Hermione cleaned up after me?" he groggily asked himself. "Suppose there's a first for everything," he answered. A pair of jeans and a dark green polo-style shirt were lying neatly over the chair in the corner, and Harry shook his head at the oddity of it all. "Perhaps she and I need to have a conversation about boundaries?"

Harry stumbled down the stairs, surprised at how the sunlight coming in the windows made the whole place look better. Maybe there wasn't as much repair work to do as he'd initially thought. He smiled at the quaintness of the place, noticing that a bouquet of the wildflowers which surrounded the hunting lodge, had been put on the mantle.

"About time," the voice called from the kitchen. "Your coffee is on the table, and I'm finishing up the bangers." Harry stopped to consider this, wondering if he'd brought back someone other than Hermione. She didn't like coffee. She didn't have the slightest idea how to make coffee. She never made him breakfast. Heck, she wasn't even awake when he got up most mornings. Harry closed his eyes, shook his head briskly and then opened them again. Not noticing anything different he pinched himself.

"Ouch!"

"You okay in there?" the voice asked again. This time Harry noticed it was deeper than Hermione's, more like Ginny's voice. Now that was something that Hermione would do. Harry had mentioned he wanted to tell Ginny everything, and explain why he'd taken Hermione instead of her. Honestly, he wasn't sure how he'd react to seeing them all, alive and young and so happy. Hermione had seen him at his absolute worst, Ginny hadn't yet.

Excited to see his girlfriend, Harry strode into the kitchen, smiling at the red-head working the stove. "Just in time, I'll plate all this. Everyone should be here any minute."

Then she turned to look at him, and Harry collapsed into the chair.

It wasn't Hermione. It wasn't Ginny or any Weasley for that matter. It was his mum! She looked older than at her wedding, more like a woman, but still astoundingly beautiful. Harry's breath quickened and he rubbed his eyes again.

"Harry, are you feeling well?" she asked. "You look absolutely peaked."

"Er…"

"Maybe you've picked up that virus that Chris and Andy Lupin brought home from their day care," she stated as she put the plate with toast and bangers on the table and felt his forehead. "Doesn't feel like you have a fever, although you are a bit clammy. Open your mouth, let me look down your throat." Lily Potter pulled her wand and lit the tip silently. Harry stared at her in utter confusion. "Harry, open up, the virus leaves blue spots on the throat. Let me check for them, sweetheart."

Harry complied, wondering if he was having the worst dream ever.

"No spots, that's good. I know you like to go with us to the cemetery every year. You and your cousins, you've been going since the beginning. I think it's different for you three because of that." Harry had no idea what she was talking about, but it didn't matter. He stood up and threw his arms around her in a strong hug.

"Oh, if this is the response I'm going to get when you wake up late, I'll let you sleep in every day. It's been a while since you hugged me like that," she said wistfully.

"Sorry, Mum."

"Nothing to be sorry about, Harry. You're a young man now, not my little boy. I'm happy, though, that Ethan, RJ and Evan are going with us too. They're all out in the garden with your Dad and uncles. All of you are getting so grown up, even your brothers and sisters." She sighed. "Your aunts will be here soon, so get a move on with your breakfast. We need to be gone from the cemetery before the Pettigrews arrive."

Harry attempted to wrap his brain around what his Mum had just said. Dad was alive? Sirius and Remus, were they his uncles? That made sense…then his aunts were Anwen and Eva or would it be Tonks? Who were all these kids? What cousins? What cemetery were they going to that the Pettigrews would dare show their faces? The questions swirled in Harry's brain, and clouded his vision so that he hadn't noticed his mum sit down in the chair next to him, nor her taking his hand.

"Harry, dear, what's the matter? You look gobsmacked this morning."

"What are we doing today?"

"Harry, it's August first, we're going to visit Peter's grave. We always go on the anniversary," she said gently, then her face changed and she suddenly reminded him of Mrs Weasley. "You, Bas and Draco didn't get into the liquor did you? I always hate when you're at their house. Just because Sirius lets you boys have whisky when you're there, doesn't mean I have to like it —"

"Draco?"

"Harry, your cousin, Draco Black? You've known him your whole life. Anwen and Sirius adopted him when he was just a toddler. Honestly, Harry, did you fall and bump your head? It sounded like you fell out of bed earlier." She immediately stood and started feeling his head.

"Mum, Mum," he complained, raising his hands to stop her. "I didn't bump my head. I just jolted awake from a strange dream or something. Just, tell me about Peter again." Harry closed his eyes, still attempting to make sense of all that was going on.

"Oh, Harry, every year…you never knew him, but the way your dad and his mates talk about him, I suspect you know as much as they do," she said lovingly, brushing his fringe from his forehead and then placing a hand on his cheek. "Your Dad's third cousin, Balthazar, was ill at the wedding. He got sick all over Peter, who then helped the boy's parents get him to St. Mungo's. Concerned about what it might be, and with all my Muggle relatives there, the professors from school did a general illness sanitation charm. Peter had gone directly to his flat from hospital, and none of us thought…" His mother stopped because her voice had broken. She took a few deep breaths and wiped a tear from her face before continuing. "No one thought about him after the party. Sirius had to take Anwen to work, Remus and Eva stayed behind to help our parents clean up and your dad and I went on our honeymoon. It wasn't until two days later when Sirius went to check on Peter that they discovered he was ill, too. Balthazar had gotten the Dragon Pox, Peter had never had them.

"The healers tried, Harry, but he just never really got better. It was only a bit over two weeks later that he died. Your dad still blames himself, since it was his little cousin who got Peter sick. The Pettigrews blame us too, although I suspect they just hang onto the blame to make themselves feel better that they hadn't inoculated him when he hadn't had them before he started Hogwarts."

"Lily Potter," a sweet, gentle, higher pitched voice called as a beautiful blonde woman walked in. Harry knew from his pictures that this was Eva. "Are you trying to put me out of a job?"

"No, my friend," Lily said as she stood and hugged the other woman, "just explaining things to Harry and our theories on the Pettigrews. Where's Anwen?"

"She got called into the Ministry to sign something for the Minister. He didn't want to bother James, and since she's their legal counsel, her signature would suffice. Malfoy is being transferred to the facility in Iceland." Eva explained. "I just hope Sirius doesn't find out about it. He'll go on another yelling spree in the Minister's office." The two women laughed, and Harry felt a calmness come over him.

"Harry, why don't you take your toast out and talk with your dad?" his mum suggested. "Maybe you can tell him about your weird dream to take his mind off the day."

"Sure." Harry scooped up his breakfast and headed out the back door, liking the way it slammed from the spring on it. He saw Sirius and Remus talking to some other boys, two looking about his age, the other three a bit younger. One looked just like his mum, only with his Dad's dark eyes. He wondered if that could be his brother. If this was a dream spurred on by his visit to the past, he didn't want to wake up. He thought, though, it might be something else.

His dad was sitting on a stone bench, in exactly the same spot as he'd built his bench in the stone grotto Harry had made in his dream or … he didn't want to think about that right now. On the same wall where Harry had made his happy couples, he saw his father had carved the Marauders out on one of their moonlight romps. Harry sat down next to his dad.

"Hey, Dad."

"Hey, Harry. I thought by this time, it wouldn't be so hard."

"What do you mean?"

"Harry, he's been gone for twenty years, but there are still days when it feels like the pain is so new. I'd never lost anyone before him, you know. Sure my great-grandparents had died, but they were in their one-forties, it's not like they hadn't lived good, long lives. Pete, he was only eighteen…we were just starting out."

"I get it, Dad," Harry said quietly, as he allowed his mind to drift to Fred and Lavender and Cedric. Since the last battle, he'd kept his mind away from the others who died. It was simply too painful. Now, as he watched his father grappling twenty years on with the death of someone Harry had come to hate, he let himself feel. He might not mourn Wormtail like his dad was, but he did know the pain of a friend's loss. Harry put his hand on his father's shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

"Dad, a wise man told me that no one that we love ever truly leaves us, I think that's true. Part of him still lives on in you."

"That's profound, Harry," James said, raising his hand to cover his son's and give it a pat. "For a moment there, I thought you might be going to tell me Sirius' line about dead folks. 'No one we love ever leaves us, and those we hate just haunt us'." James stopped for a moment before he and his son shared a laugh. "I suppose if I were him, and had his wacky Aunt Cassiopeia still haunting one of my houses, I might have dark humour too." The laughter died naturally, and Harry had wished for moments like these, but never believed he'd get one.

The pair sat in silence for a few more minutes before a short woman came out of the house with several chipped plates and two girls who looked like twins behind her. His Mum and Eva came out as well, and the whole family gathered around the plates. Even if he didn't have pictures of Anwen, Harry would have known the petite woman by the way Sirius looked at her.

Their time at the gravestone was brief, and they all returned to the hunting cottage, as it was close by and had a Floo connection to each of the different family homes. As they milled around the garden, eating the luncheon his mum and aunts had made, Harry went over to Remus.

"Remus, I have a hypothetical for you," Harry said and Remus nodded. "What if someone did something accidental while they were back in time with a Time-Turner? Would a little thing, like spilling soup or dropping a key somewhere, would it be enough to change the course of someone's life?"

"Hmm, interesting question. This is more something your Aunt Anwen would know, but…?" he paused and Harry could almost see him thinking. "I suppose anything is possible. There are physicists who think a butterfly flapping its wings is enough to start a slight breeze which could turn into a hurricane on the other side of the world; so I guess spilling soup could be enough to change time. Why do you ask?"

"Just thinking. Guess I miss school."

"You'll have enough of it come two weeks. Sirius said your aunt is chomping at the bit to be back at work and teaching. I think you first year cadets might be in for some hard work. At least you have some fine tutors," he said as he motioned around the grassy area. There were children running everywhere, as well as some folks who had to be grandparents to one family or another. If what he was seeing was accurate, whose family didn't matter.

"It's an amazing family, Uncle Remus. I'm lucky to have them." Harry looked around. His dad was smiling, tossing a little girl with crazy-curly red hair in the air. His mum and Anwen were clearing dishes and talking a mile a minute. Some little girls were having a tea party in the shade and the younger boys were kicking around a football. Eva seemed to have her hands full with a pair of sleepy twin boys, he supposed them to be the aforementioned Chris and Andy, who had the blue spot virus. Sirius must have been talking Quidditch, if his hand movements were any indication, with Draco and his brother, as well as the twin-looking girls, who he had learned weren't, but instead were cousins. One of them was his sister, but he wasn't sure which one. It was a normal day. A family day. One of what he suspected were a thousand that he might have already had. It was a happy day; and whether it was a dream or if they'd really changed time, Harry wasn't sure and he didn't care.

It was the happiest day, and they were all together.